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Tesla and Elon Musk won’t budge on what Cybertruck orderers want to hear
Yesterday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased the Cybertruck twice with two new images of a production candidate version of the all-electric pickup. Sightings of the Cybertruck have been plentiful through the past few months, but the real details that orderers want to hear are still being kept a mystery as the company and its CEO won’t budge on what they will be.
The Cybertruck is perhaps Tesla’s most anticipated vehicle in history. It was unveiled four years ago, and after delays and years of holdups in terms of development and production, Tesla is finally ready to begin deliveries by the end of the year.
However, the nearly two million people who have placed orders for the Cybertruck are still unsure what they will pay, what powertrain their truck will have, and when they will get it.
Tesla Cybertruck production candidate revealed by CEO Elon Musk
James Locke, a longtime Tesla owner, asked Musk yesterday when the company would release this information. “Enough with the hype, let’s get down to business,” he said, requesting any information on vehicle specs, pricing, and the delivery date event.
But Musk was unwilling to give that information, even still, as the Cybertruck nears initial deliveries.
“When we are ready to do so, we will,” he said. “While I think it is our best product ever, it is an extremely difficult product to build. We are in uncharted territory because it is not like anything else.”
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Musk hammered this point home in an email to Tesla employees yesterday, which reminded production line associates, engineers, and others that their mistakes would be magnified due to the “bright metal” and “mostly straight edges” the Cybertruck design has.
“If LEGO and soda cans, which are very low cost, can do this, so can we,” Musk said.
In the four years since the Cybertruck was unveiled, a lot has changed, including the prices of vehicles. Mid-size pickups have increased from $33,262 in March 2019 to $41,176 in the same month in 2023. Full-sized trucks have swelled from $48,653 to $62,825, according to data from Kelley Blue Book.
Pricing is likely still up in the air, but Musk has hinted toward what potential Cybertruck pricing could be in the past. However, powertrains, at least for early vehicle builds, are more than likely finalized, and those who put a $100 deposit on the Cybertruck early on chose a specific configuration.
This option was eliminated a couple of years ago. Instead, Tesla simply allowed people to put money down, but there were no options for configurations.
We are getting down to the nitty-gritty with the Cybertruck, and with deliveries likely closing in within the next few months, people are still confused over what vehicle they will get and how much they will pay. If Tesla’s plan is to reveal this information at the delivery date, doesn’t that seem kind of late?
Nevertheless, the orderers of the Cybertruck are more than likely willing to give their money regardless, as they have been waiting patiently for the truck to be built and released for years.
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Last night, we found out the Cybertruck Delivery Event would be held in Texas, and not Fremont, California, as batches of the pickup had been spotted at Tesla’s Northern California production facility.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
SpaceX released new footage of Starship in space captured by the Starlink satellites it deployed.
SpaceX released a new video Friday evening showing Starship from an angle showcased by its own Starlink satellites, watching the rocket drift away in orbit.
The 65 second clip, posted on X, stitches together footage from four cameras mounted on a single Starlink V3 satellite. It opens with a close view of Starship’s 171 foot upper stage, still catching sunlight, then pulls back as the two spacecraft separate.
The footage comes from Starship’s 13th flight test, which launched July 24 from Starbase after a scrubbed attempt and an abort caused by an engine issue the week before. When Flight 13 finally flew, it carried the first batch of functional Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever deployed, twenty of them, with six equipped with cameras meant to scan the ship’s heat shield during reentry.
View of Starship in space from a Starlink V3 satellite on Flight 13.
This composite is made of imagery from four separate cameras on a single satellite. Six of the satellites were equipped with cameras to scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to… pic.twitter.com/sNTHHz5vLr
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 31, 2026
Flight 13 checked most of its boxes. Starship deployed all 20 satellites, relit a Raptor engine in space, and splashed down softly in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Musk’s longer term plan calls for a Starlink V3 constellation of 100,000 satellites, according to a recent FCC filing, with Starship as the only vehicle capable of launching them at the volume that requires. Each Starship flight is designed to carry up to 60 V3 satellites once the vehicle reaches routine service, well beyond what Falcon 9 can carry in a single mission.
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Starship is next expected to fly with an attempt at catching the ship itself with the launch tower’s mechanical arms, a maneuver SpaceX has so far reserved for the Super Heavy booster.
Tesla flexed the new features of the Model Y L with a dedicated media event at the company’s Diner on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The Model Y L is the extended-wheelbase version of the all-electric crossover, which has been voted the best-selling car in the world on three occasions. The vehicle is already rolling off production lines at Gigafactory Texas, and first deliveries are slated to take place later this year.
Tesla brings Model Y L ‘Launch Series’ to the U.S. at $61,990
Teslarati was invited to the event, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we could not make it to Los Angeles. Instead, we will have our hands on a media unit sometime in August, so we’ll be able to spend some more extended time with the Model Y L.
However, plenty of those who made it to LA shared some cool features that set the Model Y L apart from the Model Y.
Multi-Row Climate Control
Tesla fitted the Model Y L with full climate control on all three rows on the front screen. It can be adjusted by selecting which row you’d like to modify on the right-hand side of the touch screen:
The Model Y L has a little row of icons on the right side of the climate screen so the front passenger can more quickly jump to whatever row they want to control. pic.twitter.com/uJS44mgCvk
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 30, 2026
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Better Rear Window Visibility
One of the strangest things about the Model Y, especially the Juniper iteration, is the rear window has extremely limited visibility when looking into the rearview mirror.
Tesla has improved upon this with the Model Y L:
This is a drastic difference. https://t.co/wTdhitD5aA pic.twitter.com/z6hFs0Jkss
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2026
PowerShare will be included
Model Y L will come with PowerShare in North America, with an 11.5kW output to your home. Tesla said it would require Powerwall 3 for operation.
Wireless Charging Pad
There has been some speculation that Tesla would upgrade the wireless charging pads in the United States, but this is not the case.
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Tesla owner fixes common feature complaint with crafty DIY retrofit
Tesla confirmed that it does not come with the cooled pads as the Y L in China does. This is because North America has not adopted Qi charging yet.
Thermal Management Improvements
These improvements in the Model Y L were seen with thermal management:
- Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
- +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather, 7 miles of real-world range gained
- 8x more solar energy reflection off of glass roof
- 30% reduction in solar energy entering the cabin
Some of the thermal management improvements in the new Model Y L Premium:
• Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
• Up to 15 min faster cabin cooling in sunny conditions
• +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather +7 miles of real-world range gained
• +10 miles recovered after… pic.twitter.com/jZirFWFdtO— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 31, 2026
Demand
Tesla said the Model Y L is almost sold out in the U.S. It comes with
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- 1 year of FSD Supervised
- 1 year of Supercharging
- 1 year of Premium Connectivity
- Free exterior paint color, interior, and wheel option at no additional cost
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Thursday night to deny a ridiculous rumor regarding the sale of the company’s Chinese vehicle production plant, Gigafactory Shanghai.
On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, claimed in a scathing new report that Tesla was exploring a potential sale of the entire China business in an effort to help bolster a potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla.
Musk immediately denied the rumor not once but twice, initially calling it “fake news,” and then calling it “absurdly fake news” in a separate post just a few moments later:
This is fake news
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026
The original poster of the Wall Street Journal article that Musk saw deleted the initial post sharing the headline and the rumored sale of Tesla’s China business.
This has never even come up in a discussion ever.
Absurdly fake news.
-People should assume news is fake until proven otherwise.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026
The report seemed absolutely and unequivocally false to begin with; Tesla’s business in China is among the most important pieces of the company’s business. Not only does the factory supply vehicles for the domestic market, but also for various other markets in Asia and Europe.
China is also one of the largest automotive markets in the world, and Tesla has performed well there despite the robust competition.
The speculation regarding a Tesla and SpaceX merger has started to gain steam this year as the space exploration company went public just a month ago. There has been speculation that Musk will bridge all of his companies under one “umbrella company,” and analysts believe this could happen before the end of the decade.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
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This is the latest iteration of Musk’s very evident war on mainstream media. Reports regarding any of Musk’s companies are quick to get the dreaded “false” or “fake news” response from the CEO when they are unfounded.
SpaceX’s Starship just got filmed by its own cargo
Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner
